Triple A
by alynwa
Summary: Alan Shore's childhood friend and mother of his child comes to visit him at work.


Triple A

Chapter 1

"Alan? Earth to Alan!"

Alan looked at Paul Lewiston and then, quickly glanced away, a little embarrassed that he had been caught not paying attention to the weekly staff meeting. "I'm sorry, Paul. What did you say?"

"I was asking you how the settlement talks are going on the Nicholas case. Have they come back with a counter-offer?"

"Oh. Um, yes, they did. I've advised my client to take it; I don't think I could get much more if we were to go to trial."

Paul put his cheaters on to look at the next item on the agenda. "Thank you, Alan. I'm tabling the next item until Shirley comes back from NY. If there's nothing else, we're adjourned."

Brad, Lori, Denise, Alan and Denny left the conference room as quickly as they could without appearing to be escaping. No one liked those weekly meetings and considered them an unnecessary evil that intruded on the workday. As they moved down the hall, Denny put his hand at the small of Alan's back to guide him to his office but, instead, Alan stopped in his tracks. "Denny, I'll come to your office in a few minutes. It's almost 11 and I need to make a phonecall. Privately."

Denny looked a little surprised and said, "We're flamingos! What can you possibly have to say to someone that I can't hear?" "It's not like that, Denny. I…just need to talk to someone about … a delicate matter." Denny moved in front of Alan. "Are you sick? Because I can help.." Alan moved them both to the side to stop blocking the hall and smiled reassuringly at his best friend. "Denny, I love you for being concerned but, there's nothing to be concerned about. I am _not_ sick. I am not in trouble. I will come to your office as soon as I finish my business. OK?" Denny pouted for a moment, then grunted, "OK," and started to walk away. "Denny!" "What now?" Alan pointed and said, "Your office is that way."

Catherine Piper was sitting at her desk sorting through Alan's mail when he came around the corner. "Good morning, dear! Here are your messages. I'll get you some coffee." "That won't be necessary, Catherine. I don't want to be disturbed. Thank you." One of the stranger facts about Alan's strange life was that Catherine Piper not only worked at Crane, Poole and Schmidt but, worked for _him_. He actually had known her back in Dedham when he was growing up and what a bitch she had been to him back then. A horrible, horrible woman. Who now answered his phone and greeted his clients. Who could have predicted that?

The number had just started to ring when the shouting started outside his door. He heard Catherine say, "What are you _doing_? You can't go in there!" and a familiar, very angry voice replied in an extremely threatening tone, "You old _bitch! _I tolerated you when I was a kid and I'll be _damned _if I let you get in my way, again! MOVE!" Alan snatched his door open just as Tara, Denny and a few others came into view. He deftly stepped in between the two women, spread his arms wide and exclaimed, "Adrienne! I was just calling you!" and embraced her so warmly and intimately that Denny and Tara looked at each other, realized neither one knew who the hell she was, looked back and just stared. Alan pulled back, kissed Adrienne softly on the lips, then turned and looked at his assembled coworkers. "It's alright, people! Just a little misunderstanding, you can all go back to what you were doing. Thank you!" Most of the crowd faded away, except for Denny and Tara. Alan figured they wouldn't, so he said as he guided Adrienne into his office, "Give us about 15 minutes and then I'll let you in." Denny puffed up and blustered, "Who the _hell _was that woman? I can understand him not letting _you_ in, Tara, but…Denny Crane!" Tara stopped staring at the closed door and said softly, "Bloody hell? How insensitive is he that he hugged and kissed that, that _woman_ in front of me and didn't even bother to say anythng to me? Of all the unmitigated _gall…_"

Catherine, who by this time, had regained her composure and sat back down, looked at Tara and said, "Don't feel too bad, dear. In today's lingo, I guess you would call her his baby-mama." Denny's jaw dropped and Tara looked like someone had kicked the air out of her. Denny recovered first. "What did you say?" Catherine smiled slightly. "You heard correctly, dear. Adrienne and Alan share a child."

Chapter 2

It was closer to 25 minutes before Alan opened his office door and invited Tara and Denny inside. It could have been hours, neither one was budging until they heard from Alan. Adrienne was sitting in one of the client chairs but, had turned it around to face both the desk and the sofa. She regarded them coolly as they entered and sat, Tara on the sofa and Denny in the chair opposite her. Alan had leaned against his desk with his arms crossed and looked at his shoes. Denny looked Adrienne over. She was a light-skinned, Black woman, about 5'6 or 7", with a very well-toned body. _Extremely _well-toned. Pleasant features, minimal makeup, if any, and her hair was parted down the middle and braided. It was just past her shoulders. Denny smiled at her in spite of his shock.

Alan straightened up, smoothed the front of his suit jacket and said, "Well, I should start by formally introducing everyone. Denny Crane, Tara Wilson, this is Adrienne Peyton. She and I grew up together and she is my childhood best friend." Tara muttered, "Among other things," which drew a furtive, slightly unfriendly glance from Adrienne. Alan continued, "Maybe you could tell from the words Catherine and she exchanged. If not, I can tell you that Catherine is not one of Adrienne's favorite people and the feeling is mutual, so I'm sure that Catherine has already told you that I got Adrienne pregnant. "

Denny sat up in the chair and said, "What Catherine said is that you share a child. Alan! How come you never told me you have a child?" Alan looked back down at his shoes. "Technically, I _don't_ have a child." Tara's face softened, "Did the child die?" Alan looked at Adrienne. She looked back and nodded her head. "Alan, if these 2 mean as much to you as you've told me, go ahead and tell them. Everything. I'll jump in when you get to the parts I'm better at explaining."

Alan pushed the intercom button and told Catherine he didn't want any interruptions; he was in a lunchtime meeting and could not be disturbed. He moved toward the sofa and sat down next to Tara close to Denny's chair. And, told the story of Adrienne, Alan and Triple A.

Chapter 3

"Adrienne and I have known each other since I was 11 and she was 9. We met in school and lived about 3 blocks apart. Denny, I've told you I didn't have the best childhood. My mother was not an affectionate woman and my father…wasn't the nicest man. Adrienne came from what was known then as a "broken home." Her mom worked 2 jobs to make ends meet and she was a latch-key kid. We became close because we were both outsiders in so many ways. I was small for my size, and bullied. There were few Black families in town and fewer families with no father in the home. We just…gravitated toward each other. We would go for walks or sit on her front steps in the warm weather and just talk and talk. About, what we wanted to be when we grew up, how we couldn't wait to get away from town, how we were going to show everybody that we were forces to be reckoned with. She didn't care that I sucked at sports and I didn't care that she only had one parent. We would drink soda pop and eat potato chips and talk. I guess that was our version of scotch and cigars.

Anyway, when I was 14, one of my mother's friends took my virginity. Before you say anything, Denny, it was scary for me. Don't get me wrong, the physical part of it felt really, really good. But, she was my mother's good friend! I didn't feel safe. Every reaction my body had, every sound I made, every sound _she _made, thrilled me and scared me at the same time. When we finished, she told me to shower and get dressed. She paid me for mowing the lawn and told me to go home. We never spoke of it or did it again. I was so confused.

I was hanging out with Adrienne one day and told her what happened. She was 12 but, her mom had already given her the "birds and bees" talk so it wasn't like she was hearing about it for the first time." Alan stopped speaking for a moment and looked at Adrienne and smiled with such love and affection that Denny and Tara both felt jealous though neither spoke. "She let me talk it all out. If I shocked her or got too graphic, she never let on. She just hugged me and said that the next time I have sex, make sure that it's right for me. It also didn't hurt that she knew where her mom kept her sex manuals! We obtained our book knowledge about sex together. First.

Chapter 4

"The second time I had sex, it was with Adrienne and I took her virginity. I was 16 and she was 14. Do you remember, Denny, that I asked you once, have you ever cried with a woman? I cried with Adrienne. I cried because the way I felt with her, was the way I should have felt _my _first time. I felt safe, I felt right, I felt loved. She cried after I told her why I was crying. She said she felt the exact same way. Everytime we made love, I felt that way.

Eventually, she got pregnant. We used condoms but, they did break once or twice and there was one time our hormones got the better of us, so take your pick. We were scared to death to tell our parents, of course. Adrienne said before we sat down with them, we needed to know what the hell we were going to do. I was all freaked out but, I said that I would drop out of school and get a job. Adrienne looked at me and wanted to know if I was insane. She reminded me that we had all kinds of plans and none of them involved staying in that town, on welfare. She said she had no intention of derailing any of our dreams. She didn't want an abortion, she wanted to give the baby up for adoption. I wasn't sure, at first but, she convinced me. She said if we kept the baby, we would end up hating it and each other. I finally agreed.

We told her mother, first. She took it a hell of a lot better than my parents did. My father, especially, had very ugly, racist things to say to both of us. I don't like to think about it.

Adrienne asked her mother to help us work out a private adoption. Her mom knew a couple of lawyers who, I guess, put the word out that a bi-racial baby was going to be available in a few months. The 2 of us were together one day and Adrienne said that we needed to decide what we wanted in our baby's parents. We have to have demands, she said. So, we put together a list of demands that any prospective set of parents had to agree to before we would sign over our parental rights. We were too young to know how crazy our demands were.

We spoke with a few couples and either we didn't like them or they didn't like our demands. I was getting nervous. One day, we met the Andersons. We went to their attorney's office with Adrienne's mother. They seemed like nice, caring people. They were an interracial couple from upstate NY and had recently started looking into adoption after being unable to have a child naturallly. Adrienne was 6 months pregnant at the time. We were both still in school and taking quite a bit of abuse from our less evolved classmates and some of the teachers , for that matter. I really, really wanted this couple to pass muster but, Adrienne wasn't backing off our demands list. And so, the interview began.

Chapter 5

"Adrienne said, we obviously won't be able to give our child our last names, so we would like you to use the name Adrienne Alana Anderson if it's a girl and Adrian Alan Anderson if it's a boy. Would you agree to that? That was our biggest demand. That had been the deal breaker for the couples we had liked. I almost fainted when Mr. Anderson said, we actually had not thought about names but, I like those names and his wife agreed! I let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding. Everything else was a piece of cake. Yes, they would teach the child to swim, the child would learn either Spanish or French, they would teach him or her to love education and encourage him to excel and go to college. They would send us progress reports and a picture every 6 months until kindergarten, then once a year through college graduation."

Tara spoke up. "Good Lord! These people actually _agreed_ to all that? What was in it for them? I mean, besides the child?" Adrienne stood up, stretched, walked over to Alan and sat on the arm of the sofa next to him. "Well," she said, "they got our medical histories up to that point, permission to be with Alan and me when I gave birth, medical history updates from both of us and most importantly, the promise that we would not interfere with how they raised the child unless, of course, there was abuse. Basically, we told them we intended to be something special and we wanted our child to be better than we would be. And, they agreed."

Alan picked the narrative up again. "Papers were signed, the lawyers got paid and the Andersons even helped defray the cost of some of Adrienne's medical bills. All we had to do was wait for the baby's arrival and ignore the crap my father and Catherine Piper insisted on dishing out."

Denny, who had been sitting with his hands clasped in his lap and eyes closed, grunted upon hearing Catherine's name. "What does she have to do with anything? Why do you dislike her, Adrienne?" Adrienne looked down at Alan, rubbed his back and smiled, then met Denny's gaze and held it. "That _piece of garbage_," she spat out, then took a deep breath and started again, "that…woman tried to have me arrested for almost killing Alan's father."

Chapter 6

"I was 7 months pregnant. I had told Alan that I would meet him at his house after my prenatal appointment. He usually went with me but, he had an important exam that he couldn't miss. As I was walking toward his house, I could hear his father screaming at him. Alan's father had a habit of drinking and then telling Alan what a disappointment he was. It didn't matter that Alan was one of the smartest kids in his class and most likely to succeed. He couldn't play sports. He had a Black girlfriend he had gotten pregnant. I decided I was going to walk into the backyard where they were, tell Alan to come on and leave his father choking on his own bile and hatred. All of a sudden, I hear his father really lose it. Alan screamed…" Tears sprang up in Adrienne's eyes at the memory and Alan looked stricken. "He _screamed_ and I starting running, well, waddling as fast as I could. I got to the backyard and Alan is lying on the ground next to the garage, his father on top of him, punching him in the face, saying he's going to kill him. They didn't see me. Alan's father played stickball and kept his bats in the garage. I hustled over to the bin where he kept his bats, grabbed one, stepped up behind them and swung as hard as I could. I was a pretty strong girl so, he fell off Alan, dazed and bleeding and when he looked around to see what happened, I hit him again. And, again. And, again. I was so angry, I was on my way to killing him for what he had done.

Then, I heard Catherine Piper, Alan's nasty next door neighbor, yelling from her upstairs window that she had called the cops. Alan's father was conscious but, badly stunned so, I figured I could take my attention off him and focus on Alan. He was a mess, His face looked like hamburger, he had screamed because his father had kicked him in the balls with his steel toed boot! The cops showed up about 3 minutes later and that…Piper witch tried to get them to arrest _me._ Thank God, the cops looked at Alan and knew I was telling the truth when I said I was saving him. He was in the hospital for a week.

Alan's father was arrested for assault and a whole bunch of other charges and went to jail. He made bail but, Alan's mom wouldn't bail him out. She never said so but, she was glad he was gone for awhile. Really, she never said much of anything. She visited Alan in the hospital and tended to him after his release. She would make small talk. She never touched Alan with affection in all the years I knew her. She never talked about how Alan got hurt . she only tolerated me because when I was there, she didn't have to be.

Two months later, I went into labor. We contacted the Andersons and they got to the hospital in time to see the birth of their son. Alan cut the umbilical cord. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson held Adrian first. When Mrs. Anderson handed him to me, Alan asked if they minded giving us some privacy to say goodbye. They went out and Alan and I held him, kissed him and told him how much we loved him and how he was going to have a great life. The nurse came in to take him to the baby ward and we cried and cried like our hearts were gonna break. We knew we had done the right thing all the way around but, it still hurt like hell. That was 26 years ago, today."

Alan smiled. "Every year, we speak to each other on this day. That was the call I told you I had to make, Denny. I never told you or Tara any of this because, frankly, a lot of it is still just too painful." Adrienne stood up and started to make ready to leave. "The last 9 years, my job has kept me out of Boston on this day so, it's just been phone calls. This year, I made certain I would be here for a face to face talk."

Denny stood up, and being Denny, let a little gas escape. "Sorry about the fart. Adrienne, I know that Alan is successful. What do you do that keeps you traveling so much?" "Mr. Crane." "Denny, please." "Alright, Denny. I usually don't talk about what I do; however, in the interest of full disclosure I will tell you. I also love the law. I didn't want to be a lawyer, though. I thought about joining a police force but, I don't like discipline and they don't earn enough money to suit me. I also love moving around the country and owning a lot of weapons and firearms. So, I became a federal bounty hunter."

Denny's eyes lit up and he looked at Alan. "Alan, I think I love her! I definitely want to have sex with her." Alan shrugged and said, "I knew you would."

Tara rolled her eyes at the banter. "So, Adrienne, before you go, in the interest of full disclosure, why is this year different? Why did you want to make certain you could see Alan face to face?"

Adrienne had moved to the door and had opened it slightly. "Well, like I told Alan before he let you in, Triple A wants to meet us."


End file.
